Marauding, etc
by sodalite
Summary: Short fiction concerning the Marauders and their contemporaries.
1. Under the last remembered moon

**Marauding, etc.**

**Short Fiction concerning the Marauders and their contemporaries. **

Under the Last Remembered Moon  


The moonlight shows many things, not least the face of a time I thought long dead. If you stare at it hard enough I fancy you can see our faces in the silver. Like a pensieve, it stores for all time the memories of those who commit themselves to its power. As we did, voluntarily and as Remus did through force.

Through the window I can see the family sitting round the table, enjoying their meal. I know this is the house; I came here once with James and Lily, though at this moment I cannot see Harry. And now I realise, I do not even know what he looks like. My eyes flicker back to the large lump of a boy sitting at the table, and wonder. The realisation hits hard. What would James say if he saw his son now?

He cannot play Quidditch like that. Gryffindor never chose beaters just for their size. James would be distraught. Nothing much else mattered to him, but that his son would follow in his footsteps. James' footsteps were rarely visible. He had a tendency to fly everywhere.

There is a sound of shattering glass from inside, voices echoing angrily out into the street. The boy I am watching flinches back suddenly, and I am startlingly ashamed. No Marauder should flinch, from anything. Oh, James, were you here. Were we all here. I would almost rather have lived through another ten years of Voldemort. At least I would have been free. And you would have lived. You and I would have been Marauders together. James and Sirius. We thought never to be parted.

Silence descends once more, and I can see their conversation through the window. I wonder what it is they discuss. They must ask Harry often to recite tales of his schoolboy adventures. That is, if he had any. The voice inside my head that would normally provide reassurance that it is James son and of course he had schoolboy adventures, has fallen strangely silent.

The blank silver face in the sky watches with interest, pulling me away, out of the present into a time so old. Oh, how I loved you all, my Marauders. Prongs most of all but you knew that already, everyone knew. An unspoken fact, but fact nonetheless. Definitely fact.

Inside something is happening, there are voices again, shouts of anger and fear, but I am not there. I am trapped in a world that is not my own, that does not exist. I almost feel your presence, my dear Prongs, I almost taste you on my parched lips. It has been so long now I can barely remember what it is. On a hazy edge of my vision, in another world I think, a figure bobs gently on a ceiling, screaming in terror.

Still I am not there. I raise my head and let out a call, as a wolf in pain. An art perfected long ago to draw Moony away from any situation that might have become dangerous. No one hears me. Not a soul answers to my call, and the silent watch of the moon holds me down, in place. I can see you now as well, I can see you standing before me, as you did so long ago. Here and now, there is no other world. It is you and me, James, only us. Yet it is not you; I know you are dead.

I catch a glimpse, a face that has been stored away in the moon for twelve years, waiting unseen. Now frozen in time, I know. I know who it is I look upon. Though it is James' face, his expression it is not. I never saw any of us look so alone. There is a moment of resentment; pure, unadulterated hate for the one who caused all this. I wish I could go back and change things.

I creep forwards, watching him, attempting that doleful puppy look James said I did so well. I wait for the reaction, wait for Harry to step forwards and pat me. James would have done. I can go with him then, explain things, perhaps one day. James would have accepted that. In my mind I see Harry and me, as close as James and me. I want to laugh with joy, here now is James' son, my godson, within my grasp.

Azkaban must have hardened my expression, or times have changed so much that personal protection is paramount. I watch Harry's face as he raises his wand, I see a flash of fear there, and I wonder, what became of us that James' child is not so curiously arrogant as to approach? What became of all those plans we made for our future? In that instant, as the clouds part for just a second, I see the moon, like the moon I used to see when I was a child. In that instant, I see before me a child who ought to be something different, who ought to have lived and been famous. Been famous for something he did, not something he cannot remember, likely doesn't want to. And I cannot forget.

In my heart I make a promise, akin to that I made when I held my best friend's son in my arms when he was born. I will protect you Harry, as I should have done twelve years ago. I will stay one step behind you, and be as proud as James should have been, of you.

With every passing of the moon time moves on. Time changes things, not always for the better. It's my fault, all of this. I cannot change that but let me try to set things right, let me try to end what should have ended twelve years ago.

The moon sets gently in the sky, and Padfoot turns away, lightly treading the cracked stone pavement. He does not wait to watch any more. And I, trapped for a time inside the dog within me, I will wait. As with each rising moon, I shall fulfil my promise. Until the moon rises no more, I shall not forget.


	2. Wolf

**Marauding, etc.**

**Short Fiction concerning the Marauders and their contemporaries. **

Wolf  


"He told us," Blaise spoke softly, watching Lupin's reactions with a carefully critical eye. To his credit, the elder man stayed upright, though his shock was, obviously, not lost on the Slytherin boy.

"I had feared as much," Lupin chose his words carefully, Blaise observed. Clearly he was attempting to hide his thoughts from his student, "I suppose people are talking?" His voice shook slightly, but his gaze remained steady.

"They are people, professor, it is in their nature," Blaise answered honestly. There was no point in covering the truth.

Lupin smiled, wanly, causing the scratches that marred his face to stretch oddly, "As I taught you. I suppose I should begin packing."

"Why?" Blaise straightened sharply, "It doesn't matter, does it?" He was somewhat startled, it had been, he felt, his duty to inform Lupin of Snape's actions, but not to force him to leave.

"Not to you, perhaps," said Lupin, his tone beginning to regain some of it's usual quiet surety.

"Then why to others?" Blaise did not want him to leave; he wouldn't allow such an injustice to carry through.

"Because I am not human. You are a Slytherin, Blaise," said Lupin, repeating something he had clearly said many times throughout his life. Blaise shivered at the unsaid phrase. _You ought to know._ He knew far more than he ever wished to. He also knew it was wrong, that Lupin was human.

"I know," he said, keeping his tone hard and indifferent. _There you are, mother, the perfect Slytherin aristocrat,_ "But it shouldn't. You are the best teacher we have ever had! I wish I could kill Snape for what he has done." He did not mean to say aloud the final sentence, did not even realise that he had thought it. Part of him was disgusted that he might even think such a thing, and yet part of him wanted to carry it through.

"A dangerous wish, Blaise," Lupin's tone of gentle reason cut through the rapidly forming plans for the murder of his head of house.

"He has ruined everything!" Blaise found he was suddenly angry, this shouldn't be allowed to happen, not again, "For you, and for others like you!"

"Why do you care so much?" Blaise nearly swore out loud; Lupin was far too perceptive. No wonder he was suspicious; Blaise had barely said two words to him outside his lessons.

"Because I know you, Professor!" In a way at least, though Lupin raised his eyebrows slightly and Blaise continued, hurriedly, "Maybe it is wrong of me to have a social conscience, but you deserve so much more."

"But why, Blaise? That isn't the reason, and you know it."

_Bugger._ Blaise looked down at the floor, feeling his anger at such injustice snap into a sadness that might any moment become a weeping mess.

"When…" he hesitated, wavering over whether or not he should say anything or merely turn and flee. _Gryffindor's aren't the only ones with courage_. He looked up to meet Professor Lupin's eyes, "I knew what you were from the first full moon you were here," he said, slowly, "I knew because -" he took a breath, "-because when I was a child I had a friend, a boy my own age who lived not far away. We were best friends, the closest you could have. When we were eleven, only weeks before we were due to start Hogwarts, he was bitten."

Lupin looked mildly shocked, but said only, "But he never came here?"

Blaise looked down. _He needed new shoes,_ "No," he whispered.

Lupin waited for the boy to continue, saying nothing.

"His parents were strict purebloods. They didn't want an animal in the house." If he spoke quickly it was easier; he was telling someone else's story, "He stayed with me for a while, I hid him, and it almost worked." _Whispered conversations at night, and food smuggled upstairs by the house elves,_ "He would have come to Hogwarts with me," The Slytherin boy raised one hand to his cheek and swiped angrily at the tears that had gathered there. Lupin reached out one hand and rested it lightly on Blaise's shoulder. He stiffened momentarily and then fell into Lupin's arms, speaking through the sobs that shook his body.

"His father found him, three days before we came to Hogwarts, He killed him," _Tortured him for hours with blades of silver,_ "He made me watch."

Lupin was silent for a while, letting Blaise cry into his shoulder, "And yet you do not blame the wolf?"

Blaise stepped backwards, slowly, "I did,"

"But no longer?"

"I met you, professor, I realised that it was not the wolf I ought to blame, but the society in which the wolf lives. You are not just the wolf."

"No," Lupin observed, "I am not."

The bell rang, marking the beginning of the day, "Thank you, Professor," Blaise said, hurriedly, dashing out of the office before Lupin could say another word. _The best teacher in the world teaches not only his subject, but society also._

For his desire to destroy the wolf with his anger, the boy Blaise had been sorted into Slytherin. _Such ambition for one so young._ For his desire to rescue the wolf from such desires, he became a man.


	3. Ink Memories

**Marauding, etc.**

**Short Fiction concerning the Marauders and their contemporaries. **

Ink Memories  


_There became a time when the world was falling apart. When divisions between sides overruled those within them. They did not trust Severus, and yet that did not matter. He found Harry, because he knew he must, because he had been ordered to do so._

They met, and Severus passed on details of plans. Harry never informed Severus of anything the Order was doing. It did not matter. It was not important to him. 

Severus leans over the edge of the balcony and holds the wad of parchment at arms length. He does not read the words scrawled in spiky black letters across the pages, for he knows that if he does, he will keep them. If he keeps them, then he will stay forever in that world of memories and haunting nightmares.

He cannot stay there.

So long has passed since the coming of the end; so long that he has lost track of the passage of time. Since the day the war ended, all days have become one, a blurry haze of existence - of eating and sleeping and writing.

He has never gone back to his old life for it would not be right. He has never lost his talent for potion making. If you ask him, he could recite every word of every textbook ever written on the subject. He also knows that he will never return to his old expertise at any point in the future. It is too close to the time that he had dared to believe in happy endings.

Happy endings are a lie, and he vows that he will never go back to the place where Harry had been, will never return to the place where the descendants of Harry's generation now live on. It is strange to know, that the world moves on after someone dies, it keeps turning, in spite of the death of a single inhabitant.

* * *

_There then was a time when information became conversation. And conversation became sex. Neither of them realised how or why it had happened, but they were both perfectly aware of being in bed with one another._

An entanglement of lives in a passionate affair, Severus and Harry became drawn into one another, as a moth is drawn to a flame.

Severus did not rejoin the order until the night before the final assault, but then, he knew he could not bear to be apart from Harry. 

* * *

He became a writer, of sorts. His task to chronicle the events of those years became everything to Severus. Became Severus himself, even, so lost he was in the ink memories on the page. To tell a story of such a time, for any man, is a task akin to building an entire world. For that is what Harry had been, in a way - an entire world.

* * *

_They told each other secrets late at night. In each other's arms, often under the stars, they would understand each other in ways that no one else could. _

* * *

In the end, he supposes, it all comes down to one thing: the art of creation. For creation to begin, there must exist love, whether that be between two people creating a human child, or a man writing on paper the memories of one he loved and lost.

Severus knows also, that any discussion of how love overpowers everything is untrue. If that were the case, Harry would be with him now, would wrap his arms around him and take him to bed.

* * *

_"Severus?" Harry spoke carefully._

"Yes?" Severus rolled over to look at him.

"Will you kiss me?"

"What?"

"Like you did that day by the lake."

* * *

He likes to compare it with Muggle physics. That for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every act of creation there is one of destruction, of hate. As every child is born, someone else dies.

* * *

_They made love at dawn, with the rising of the sun; fucked each other as though it was the last time they would. Neither wanted to admit their fears over the approaching battle, and yet both were afraid._

* * *

His world was torn apart by hate.

* * *

_Minerva nearly caught them at it._

* * *

Severus does not forget. Nor does he forgive. He wants simply not to care, to while away the hours and days in mere existence and words, waiting for the day that he will die. That will not be long now, for he grows older every moment. He does not want to hate because hate tore his world apart.

He lets the paper fall.

It catches on the wind and scatters, the story of a lost world, spread like dust across the landscape. Like Harry so long ago, it will become one with the ground.

* * *

_They attacked three hours after sunrise. The death eaters numbered thousands. Wave upon wave cascaded over the horizon, and for every one that fell there were twelve to take it's place. Flashes of light and sound filled the minds of those on the battlefield. If one could add music it would almost be beautiful. Beauty in bloodshed and death, and in the promise of sex afterwards, so long as they all survived intact._

* * *

Severus turns. On the table in the bedroom is a half-empty glass of wine. He pads silently inside, his bare feet the only visible skin beneath his neck. He drinks the rest of the wine, and sits down at the table.

* * *

_It ended so very quickly. It was like a disappointing shag, so much build up, and then it ended in the briefest of moments._

He never even said, "I love you." 

* * *

"I wonder," he mutters under his breath, "what story might I tell today?"


	4. Book of Days

**Marauding, etc.**

**Short Fiction concerning the Marauders and their contemporaries. **

Book of Days

Hermione had never before ventured into the library at Grimmauld Place, thinking it to be a place of dark magic and memories that were better left undisturbed. Today however since they were emptying the house for refurbishment to sell it onto Muggles, she felt they should deal with any magical traces left behind, especially those of the Black family. Of course, her instinct to have her nose constantly in a book had led her to volunteer for the task of emptying the library.

The rows of dusty books in the obviously enlarged room took even her by surprise. There seemed to be more books here than orbs in the room of prophecy at the ministry. She shuddered, unwilling to remember that day. To occupy her mind she wandered along the shelves and slid a small, plain book out from between two larger volumes. Written on the first page, in perfect scripture were the words, "The lost days." She stared at it in slight confusion, wondering what days could have been lost and later found, so they could be written down in a book. She turned the page, and almost dropped it.  
_  
My dear Hermione,_

You told me the first night you came I would have to write this down, so you would find me. It isn't hard for I recall every word we shared, even though some of it was nearly fourteen years ago, and at the time your real self was just a Muggle toddler.  
Close your eyes Hermione, you will find me. Will yourself to me, you will find me. Follow your heart, and know it was your love that kept me sane, not Padfoot, you.

Come for me Hermione, here I still live, if only in a lost life.  
  
Hermione stared, she recognised the handwriting but was unwilling to believe. She shut her eyes, against all the risks, willing herself away.

The cell was dark and cold in the harsh November rain. The lone figure in dirty robes huddled into the corner away from all sounds, rocking back and forth as though mad.

"Sirius?"


End file.
